Important Criteria For Industrialized Building Systems From The Prespectives Of Major Project Partcipants

Abstract

The revolution in the building industry has resulted in many new building systems
being introduced. Consequently, the principal project participants are often faced
with decision involving the selection of an appropriate building system. Hence, the
research presented in the study focuses on the importance of criteria in selecting the
most appropriate building system. It also presents a proposed evaluation model that
serves as a guideline for professionals in the industry to perform an initial feasibility
study on the selection of industrialized building system.Based on the literature search, the relevant criteria were grouped into six categories:
Project Objectives Criteria, Project Characteristics Criteria, Project Constraint
Criteria, Technical Oriented Criteria, Performance Oriented Criteria, and Resources
Oriented Criteria. The importances of these criteria were identified through a mailed
questionnaire, which was employed as the research methodology.
From the importance or priorities of criteria obtained from the questionnaire survey,
the relationship of criteria among principal project participants was a.'1alyzed. It has
found that the criteria among Clients, Architects, and Engineers are strongly
correlated, except the criteria of Contractor. In addition, it has also been found that
the criteria among principal project participants are independent from methods of
construction, methods of contracting and types of project.
The proposed evaluation model is set up based on the Analytical Hierarchy
Procedure, which enables to set up complex problems involving attributes,
subattributes, sub-subattributes, and so on, in an orderly, structured manner. Beside
organizing the tangible and intangible decision criteria in a systematic manner, it
also provides a structured yet relatively simple solution to the decision-making
problems related to selection of an appropriate building system for implementation.
As a result of the research, there will be documented sources of information for the
selection of an appropriate building system. Moreover, the selection of an
appropriate building system can be performed in a systematic and effective method.